Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Wedding Wednesday: Crazy Dreams

Most of my friends that have gotten married warned me that I would have crazy/stressful dreams leading up to the wedding. I'm a more anxious person and the dreams I remember tend to be stressful, so I'm not surprised to find that I'm having quite a few anxious dreams before the wedding. All I can do is laugh at how absurd they are! Here are some of the bad dreams I've had:

- I wake up the morning after the wedding and can not remember any details of the day before. I am confused about this because I did not drink at the wedding so there's no reason why I can't recall any details from the day before. I'm most upset about not remembering my dad's speech. My dad is not someone who loves the limelight, but he does a great job when he speaks in public. It's very off-the-cuff (he doesn't write his speech, he tends to work off notes he makes in a small notebook), but he does a wonderful job. So I was heartbroken in this dream over the fact that I couldn't remember what he said (note to self: ask someone to record my dad's speech because we aren't having a videographer (because OMG it's so expensive and I couldn't fit it in the budget)).

- The wedding is about to start and I am not at all ready. I'm not dressed and my hair hasn't been done and I have yet to see my photographer. I HATE being late so it was the worst feeling ever to not be ready for the wedding! After this dream I emailed my photographer and set up an appointment to review the day-of timeline because I figured it would help to know that I have a detailed plan for the day.

- The wedding is about to start and I realize I forgot to pack any contacts so I have to wear my glasses. I don't like wearing glasses and don't want any pictures of me in glasses so I decide to take them off. Which means I can't see A THING during the wedding ceremony because I am basically blind without contacts (for other contact/glasses wearers, my prescription is -4.5. I can't even see an alarm clock next to my bed without glasses unless I squint).

- My wedding takes place in my high school gymnasium. Anyone who knows me well knows I HATED high school, so it makes no sense to get married there (plus I never go to my home town anymore since I see my parents at the lake). This is another dream where I was not ready for the wedding. The bridal party procession was starting and I wasn't even in my dress yet. As the dream was ending, I was heading into the women's locker room (which I remember as being a dingy, gross room) to try to track down my dress and get ready.

- We had a groom's cake at the wedding (which is something we aren't doing so I don't know where this came from) and a guest helped them self to 1/3 of the cake!! I remember walking by this guest thinking - what are they thinking? I actually remember who the guest was and it's a person that is not even invited to the wedding as I don't know them well. The cake was gone in a matter of minutes and Phil never got to see it. Strangely it wasn't a cat shaped cake which is what we'd have if we had a groom's cake. All I remember was that the cake in this dream was a bright green color. In this dream I also realize at the reception that I had yet to see the photographer and am wondering how the heck she is taking pictures/capturing the event without me seeing her.

That's just a selection of the crazy dreams I've had. The brain is a strange thing. Phil feels so bad for me. He has ZERO dreams about the wedding. Actually he rarely, if ever, has stressful dreams so he can't believe that I'm even stressed out when sleeping! The funny thing is that during the waking hours, I am not super stressed about the wedding. Yes, there is what seems like a never-ending list of to dos but in general, I feel pretty calm about the wedding and mostly I just feel excited.

Have you ever gone through a phase of your life where you had lots of anxious dreams?

15 comments:

Oh Lisa, that sounds horrible! At least you can remember them -- I can never remember my dreams very well and wish I could. At least I must not have a lot of super stressful ones!

But at least you got a good tip from the one -- recording your dad's speech. With all the video phones it shouldn't be too hard. And you'll be so glad you have it. Maybe someone will even record parts of the wedding. Good tip!

I like how you have addressed the concerns though. Setting up a timeline with the photographer is an excellent idea! We've decided to do all pictures before hand so that there will be none after the ceremony. I agreed to make a list of the pictures that I want to make sure we don't miss anything because they first time we had absolutely none of me with my family. In the end the lack of pictures the first time around was a blessing so there's that :) The not ready in your dress dreams actually signifies the stress you don't realize that you're feeling over the every day to do list for the wedding. You're natural desire is for everything to be beautiful and lovely, and it will be, and while you know you have it under control you also are unconsciously feeling more pressure than you realize, hence the dreams. Thankfully exercise is the best thing you can do and you are making sure that you are consistently working out which helps stress levels tremendously! As you have the crazy dreams I think you are wise to evaluate what you might can do, like the photographer timeline, in order to know that you have that piece taken care of. Thankfully you will have an absolutely wonderful honeymoon and you will be able to just enjoy and no longer have any underlying stress! Big hugs!!!

Those are crazy dreams! I don't remember having dreams about my wedding, but did have crazy dreams before the birth of my children, which some were hilarious! I guess even though we don't feel stressed out, we may actually be underneath! I know all will go well, as you have planned things out to a "tee", but there always pops up something that we hadn't planned, but no one notices except the bride and maybe the mother of the bride, but I am not worried at all!

Lol these make me giggle. I had very similar dreams leading up to our wedding too. The one I remember most was always that I either forgot about the whole day or that I'm not ready in time because I'm spending the whole morning doing other things than getting ready!! All normal - it's on your mind a LOT. And you are so right about dad's speech! He is so good and his words are very true and from the heart. I'm excited to see what he has to say!

I have been having a LOT of dreams lately about our move and they have been horrible dreams!! Like one dream I dreamt that Ryan got really mad at me and left me at home and tells me to figure out my own way of getting to Fargo. LOL! So weird!

Haha, I hear you on the high school one. Talk about a nightmare! I had a few crazy wedding dreams, most of them involving being late or vendors with wrong dates. I think one was me having the wrong date for my own wedding! I definitely get stressed about things being perfect before hand but by the day of I'm usually able to go with the flow. There were so many details that we forgot about the day of, but it didn't matter. Sure afterwards I was like can't believe we spent money on that and didn't use it, but oh well. Everyone had a great time and we were married so thats all that matters!

that does sound tough! I have dreams about drowning when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed. it's quite terrifying. Also have contiguous dreams where one dream picks up where the last dream of that situation left off. Usually those involve being naked in school. ha!

Ha. so funny! I guess there are just so many details, naturally your mind jumps to something going wrong. But it won't. Or if it does, it won't matter in the big picture. I do recommend asking two people to tape your dad's speech, though - what if one of them is in the bathroom?

Oh, gosh, I am certain that I'd have the same dreams if I ever planned a wedding. My subconscious is a crazy place to be. I have so many vivid dreams! I think it's awesome that you're choosing to take some action on some of these dreams, though. It could be your subconscious bringing to light some of your anxieties!

Ha ha dreams are seriously SO WEIRD. Our brains are so interesting. I definitely remember having crazy wedding dreams leading up to our wedding, most of them about things going wrong at the wedding, so my dreams were more on the stress-y/anxious side as well. I don't really remember what they were though, I think it's fun you did a blog post so you can look back on this down the road!!

haha dreams are so weird! I've actually been going through a very similar thing (I'm not getting married, duh haha but I am approaching a highly anticipated / somewhat stressful time of the year) and my dreams have been completely absurd. At first I was overthinking them and trying to read into them all and now I'm mostly just laughing being like "this is so weird". Last night was my first "good night" of sleep where I didn't wake up at every hour between 3 and 6, in like two weeks! Anyways, I have no advice for making the dreams go away but I do have advice for the videographer! A lot of my couples have someone (like an uncle) hold a GoPro during the ceremony and dances/speeches.

I occasionally dream about getting in fights. Like punching people, struggling, etc. When I'm really stressed I just grind my teeth, I wake up with a sore jaw. Its something I would love to figure out how to stop.

I definitely had anxious dreams before but I can't recall if I had any while going through wedding planning.... if so, the didn't stick in my memory! ;)While your dreams sound stressful, I am sure your wedding will be all but perfect ;)

Oh my goodness, I have stressful sleeps/dreams ALL the time. Like seriously, ALL the time. I wake up with my heart just racing. There are certain times when these get worse, like leading up to the first day of school each year. I always have panicky dreams that I'm not ready, the kids come in, and I have nothing planned or prepared, and the room is a disaster, etc. I still have stressful university dreams too, like I thought I dropped a class but I didn't, and it's the last day, and I have a final to write, and none of the papers have been handed in all term ... things like that.

My dad is exactly the same with speeches/public speaking. He doesn't prepare anything that I have ever seen (perhaps just in his head), and always steals the show.

The guest eating 1/3 of the cake - ha! So funny!

For friend and family weddings I've often set up a Flip Video camera (that I got for about $100 years ago) on a tripod and recorded all the speeches for them. I've done the same thing with my cell phone at Christopher's show before and recorded the entire thing. It's definitely worth having, so yeah, make sure to ask someone. I set up my flip video at the front of the church for Christopher's brother's wedding and recorded the ceremony for them too, and then made CD copies for the in-laws and them - cost basically nothing, and is a nice keepsake.

About Lisa

Hi, I'm Lisa! Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm a 30-something living in Minneapolis, MN which is a city I adore. I have many loves but some that top the list are running, reading, traveling and all things French.